If You Buy Only 1 Foreign Market ...

Investors have ignored this country's promise for too long.

Look, we here at The Motley Fool don't really buy into the "market does this, market does that" hullabaloo. But you'd be daft not to recognize that companies in any market tend to do well when the market does well, and companies in a country tend to do well when that country's economy is bubbling.

And man, have the markets bubbled. Returns around the globe have been unbelievable, with markets in Europe, South America, and Asia all recently scorching to multiyear or even all-time highs. And it's not as if things went up in a straight line. Last May, the Indian stock market suddenly shed 40% of its value, with companies like Satyam Computer Services (NYSE:SAY) and ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN) leading the charge. If you ever needed a contrary indicator, this was it: People in India were jumping off bridges.

What came next? The Indian stock market recovered all of its gains by September and currently sits near its all-time high. Clearly, this can't last, can it?

That depends. Certainly, Brazil, Russia, China, and India have had great runs. India, trading at nearly 21 times earnings, is probably due for a correction. But even though these markets dominate the attention of the wagging-tongue set, they are not even close to being representative of all foreign markets.

Here at the Fool, I run an investing service that specializes in foreign equities. We call it Global Gains, and we launched it this past November. But I've been focusing on foreign stocks for the entirety of my investing career. I tend to look where other investors do not, and I tread where they fear to do so. After all, some of the worst-performing stock markets in 2006 were in oil-producing countries. Who would have made that bet in 2005, when oil prices surged past $70 per barrel? "International equities" is a huge playground, and we cover all of it, from big European pharmaceuticals such as Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE:SNY) to telecom concerns like China Mobile (NYSE:CHL) and Mexico's America Movil (NYSE:AMX), to turnaround stories such as Unilever (NYSE:UL).

There are markets that are still cheap, though. My January stock selection for Global Gains came from the one I think investors have undersold for years and years: Taiwan.

The little dragon still throws flamesBecause it lacks diplomatic relations with much of the world and has been embroiled with mainland China in conflict for nearly six decades, investors seem to believe that Taiwan is a has-been, a market that is going to be subsumed by its bigger Chinese neighbor. But people don't seem to realize that the world's high-tech industry is almost totally dependent on Taiwan, with its big foundries run by monstrously profitable companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor and United Microelectronics (NYSE:UMC). Taiwanese companies also have invested more money into China than those from any other in the world.

Think they're going to get eaten up by China? Heck, no! China runs on Taiwanese capital, and Taiwanese companies are uniquely culturally adept in fording the difficulties of the Chinese market. Taiwan has gone from being a manufacturing center to one that uses its capital and intellectual property, so they're not spending capital to build high-cost plants in Taiwan. Yet investors are falling over themselves to invest in China, and no one is looking at Taiwan. Strange.

Well, almost no one. We at Global Gains are. If you'd like some help finding overseas stock opportunities, click here to take a 30-day free trial of Global Gains.

This article was originally published on Jan. 12, 2007. It has been updated.

Global Gains advisor Bill Mann does not own shares of any security mentioned in this article. Unilever is an Income Investor recommendation. The Fool has a disclosure policy.